Ohio State football: With cupcakes devoured, Buckeyes focusing on Big Ten play

Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer, right, sings "Carmen Ohio" while standing next to school mascot Brutus Buckeye after their 76-0 win over Florida A&M in an NCAA college football game Saturday, Sept. 21, 2013, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)

COLUMBUS — Let the real season begin.
After four weeks of feasting on undermanned opponents, Ohio State turns its focus to the start of the Big Ten season on Saturday when Wisconsin (3-1) visits Ohio Stadium for a prime-time clash with the Buckeyes (4-0). Kickoff is 8 p.m.
With all due respect to Buffalo, San Diego State, Cal and Florida A&M — a nonconference quartet the Buckeyes outscored by an average of 52-15 — this is the week that has been circled on calendars in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.
“I remember Jack (Mewhort) telling me (Sunday), ‘I’m ready to play somebody this week,’” said center Corey Linsley on Monday of a conversation with the Buckeyes’ left tackle. “We played somebody against Cal, and these programs have been playing hard. But it’s not like a Big Ten game. It’ll never be. It couldn’t be.
“The Big Ten season has its own feel to it. It’s colder outside. Practices are a little longer. ... Everything is amped up a little because it’s conference play.”
Not that the fourth-ranked team in the nation needed it, but Coach Urban Meyer might have stoked his team’s fire a little bit on Monday when he referred to the Badgers as “the King of the Big Ten.”
Factually, that statement is correct. The Badgers are reigning Big Ten champions after their win over Nebraska in the conference championship game last December.
The victory sent the Badgers to the Rose Bowl.
But no one has to remind the Buckeyes who won last year’s game at Camp Randall Stadium. Ohio State won, 21-14, in overtime. The Buckeyes, though, were ineligible for the Big Ten title game because of an NCAA-mandated postseason ban.
“We won it last year, but we were not able to play in the Big Ten championship,” defensive back Bradley Roby said. “It’s always a tough battle with them. They beat us a couple of years ago when we were No. 1.”
The loss Roby referred to was a 31-18 defeat to the Badgers in 2010. Ohio State’s only defeat that season took them out of the national championship race.
The Buckeyes don’t want a repeat of the 2010 game this Saturday against the Badgers. Wisconsin’s lone loss is to nationally-ranked Arizona State.
“Every Big Ten game is going to be a battle,” receiver Evan Spencer said. “Having Wisconsin this early in the season is going to be good for us, I think. We’re going to prepare really well for them, get out there and show them what the Buckeyes are about.”
The game will be an interesting battle of wills, pitting OSU’s fast-paced offense against Wisconsin’s stingy defense, which has allowed only 10.5 points per game so far this season.
The game also will feature teams averaging more than 500 yards of offense per game. Wisconsin has the nation’s third-best rushing offense (349.8). Ohio State’s (311.0) is ranked sixth.
“You definitely need these types of games to prove yourself,” Linsley said, “to find out who you are and find out what you’re made of.”
Though Wisconsin coach Gary Andersen, a former assistant of Meyer’s at Utah, said there is no added importance to this game, it could be must-win material for both Ohio State and Wisconsin. With Penn State (3-1) under NCAA sanctions, Saturday’s winner has a leg up in the Leaders Division, with Illinois, Indiana and Purdue expected to top out as league spoilers.
“This is far from a championship game,” Anderson said on a conference call Monday. “It’ll be just one game in the conference race at the end.”
But it’s a big one. It’s Ohio State-Wisconsin. And it’s the Big Ten opener.
In short, it’s everything the first four weeks weren’t.
“It’s nice to get back to this mentality,” Linsley said. “I missed it.”